


Just keep on (keeping on)

by lachtara



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: just two dumbasses talking feelings, they both deserve the world honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20581619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachtara/pseuds/lachtara
Summary: He picks up the coffee, takes the lid off and sniffs it.“What the hell are you doing?”“Just checking if it’s not poisoned.” But she doesn’t react. Not even a smile.Rude.orTom and Amelia talk after the s15 finale events.





	Just keep on (keeping on)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this months ago, right after the finale ended, and decided why the hell not post it?

He’s not hiding. If anyone would acuse him of it, Tom would firmly deny it. Tom Koracick does not hide.

If you wanted to get technical about it, he’d say it’s more like avoiding. Like when he avoided going into the elevator when he saw the flash of blonde hair going inside, or how he purposefully avoided the coffee cart because Hunt was there, and how he had repeatedly refused to go down to the E.R. or the cafeteria, or the attending’s lounge for two weeks.

So no, he was not hiding inside the lab with the doors shut and the blinds drawn. He was just avoiding seeing or being seen by people.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful - though a little annoyed he had been so caught up on his thoughts he didn’t hear the door open - when a cup of coffee got placed in front of him.

“Good morning, Tom.” She says it flatly, in the same way she usually talks to him, but her eyes are soft around the edges, and he silently thanks Amelia for trying to not make things awkward.

He, on the other hand, can’t help himself.

“Wow. I get a good morning and a coffee? If I knew getting dumped was all I needed to do to get you to act friendly I would’ve done it a long time ago.” He aims for cheery, but the bitterness that undoubtedly comes out has him flinching a little.

Amelia doesn’t seem bothered by it, probably because she’s heard the same tone in her own voice once or twice over the past few months.

“Well, I saw you skipped your morning coffee and didn’t feel like dealing with your grumpy attitude today. Sue me.” She rolls her eyes and pulls up a file on her tablet. He picks up the coffee, takes the lid off and sniffs it. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just checking if it’s not poisoned.” But she doesn’t react. Not even a smile. Rude. “Kidding, kidding, did you remember-“

“Two creams and three sugars. I brought you coffee everyday for over a year, Tom.” She sips her own. “Still don’t know how you can drink that monstrosity, though.”

“Some of us just like to enjoy the sweet things in life, Shepherd.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Amelia is still focused on the screen, but she keeps tapping her nails on the glass surface of the table. Tom knows that telltale. He sighs and leans back on his chair, better to rip off the bandaid.

“You can ask, you know?” Amelia’s eyes shoot up from the screen so fast Tom’s admired they don’t just pop out. She’s giving him the same look she used to when he would catch her studying scans she wasn’t supposed to be studying during her residency. Like a deer caught in headlights. A very un-innocent, manipulative deer.

He stares her down until she presses her lips together in surrender and lets the worry show on her features. He’s a little touched by it, but he’d never admit it out loud. “How are you doing?”

“I’m... fine, I guess.” She blinks, unimpressed. “Okay, it sucks. I just hadn’t felt this way in a very long time and well, it hurts, honestly. I’m just glad she actually ended things when she did, I mean, at least I didn’t get... you know.” He gestures vaguely at nothing.

“Too attached? Come on, Tom, you’re in love with her.” There’s a grimace on her face, like she just realized he’s way deeper in denial than she had thought.

Tom closes his eyes, he’s going to have to talk about it, or she won’t leave him alone. And well, things could be worse, Amelia isn’t half a bad listener when she wants to.

“Not, not Teddy.” He adjusts his position on his chair and watches her, waiting for her to connect the dots.

“Oh.” Amelia gets a wistful look on her face, and he curses inwardly when he remembers. She knows very well how it feels to get attached to a child and then have to let them go. “Okay, yeah, maybe that wasn’t so- who am I kidding, it’s awful either way. I’m sorry.”

He actually appreciates the words coming from her. From someone else, he knows they’d come from pity, from her they come from understanding, so they mean more.

“And I’m sorry about, you know, not telling you.” She bites her lip and avoids his eyes now. The truth is, Tom had contemplated calling her out on it, had been angry at first, had thought it lack of loyalty. But some weeks of silent contemplation had changed his perspective.

“No, it’s not- it wasn’t your call to make, I get it.” If Teddy has wanted him to know she would’ve found a way to tell him, and if Amelia had and he showed up unannounced... it wouldn’t have ended well. “You didn’t want to burst my bubble, huh? Very considerate.” He means it as a joke, but it’s admittedly not a good one.

“No, Tom, that’s not it, at all.” His protégée shakes her head vehemently. “I just didn’t feel like it was my place, and I know I usually get up into everybody’s business but that doesn’t usually end well, so I’m trying to do better.”

She’s being way more earnest than he thought she would, and not for the first time her newly acquired maturity bothers him. She’s not supposed to be the one with fortune cookie wisdoms up her sleeve. Their conversations aren’t supposed to be so heavy.

“And you also didn’t want to tell me I told you so, which thanks by not doing, by the way.” Amelia takes a deep breath and looks up. He can tell by the way she grips the tablet she is actually considering throwing it at him, so he quickly amends. “Seriously, no sarcasm involved. I feel like shit already, I really don’t need that on top of it.”

“Did you think I actually wanted to say that?” She looks genuinely surprised and it makes him feel a little bad, to have misread her intentions so poorly. “It’s not your fault, Tom, it’s not. And God knows I wanted you to be right about that, I really did.”

“That’s a rare event.”

On his defense, she walked right into that one.

“Ha. Yes, it is, but eventually necessary. It gets tiring being right all the time.” Amelia rolls her eyes, but lets her mouth pull into a side smile. She knows that’s as far as they’re getting today, and it’s more than she had been ready for when she first walked in. So she takes this small victory with pride.

Tom smiles back. “So, we good? You’re gonna get back to acting normal now? Cause that ‘good morning, Tom’ kinda creeped me out.”

“Sure. Just one more thing, please?” He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t stay cooped up here too long, okay? I need someone to sit awkwardly beside me in the cafeteria when they walk in.” She looks a little embarrassed for admiring it, but Tom is a little confused.

“Isn’t ortho Ken arm candy enough?”

The brunette purses her lips. “We’re not- he asked me if I wanted more and I’m not sure I’m ready for it. I didn’t want to be unfair to him, or lie, so... we’re just being friends right now.”

He takes a long look at her, until she fidgets on her chair, then shakes his head and mutters, although loud enough so she can hear.

“And I thought my life was sad.” Amelia’s eyes narrow dangerously and he raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, we can get lunch today, but you’re paying.”

It’s her turn to look at him, only her gaze is more disapproving than scrutinizing. “You’re the absolute worst, Tom Koracick.”

Tom lets out his first real smile in a while. “But you love me anyway.” He teases and laughs when she rolls her eyes for the hundredth time in less than an hour.

They go back to their routine of work and banter, and for a couple of hours he forgets why he had felt like hiding in the first place.


End file.
